Three "R's" in the Trump campaign agenda: Revenge, Retribution and Racism

 Although The Washington Post tries to stay upbeat, it would be a disservice to sugarcoat Ruth Marcus’s column about the increasingly real possibility of Donald Trump returning to the presidency.

I’ll start where she finishes: “It is time to be very, very afraid.”

Ruth reviews some of the polls indicating Trump’s surging strength and then cracks open what a second term would look like. The order of the day? Revenge. 

Reporting from The Washington Post revealed a list of targets who Trump feels burned him and whom he wants to burn back, beginning with former White House chief of staff John Kelly. 

And if the public objects, well, the Insurrection Act is right there to be twisted into quashing peaceful protest.

“This would be unbelievable except that it isn’t,” Ruth writes.

How did we get back to this place? It felt so remote for so many relieved by the 2020, (hopeful) vote.

At The Washington Post, eight columnists (including Ruth) convened, to try to figure it out, and they came up with some competing, compelling theories.

Maybe it’s the galvanizing indictments against Trump, says Jason Willick, with attempts to kick him off state ballots as the sprinkles on top. Or Democrats’ failure to discourage President Biden from running again, as Perry Bacon writes. Or, per Jim Geraghty, Trump’s strategy-challenged GOP primary opponents.

The next question: How do we get out of this place?

There’s a (small) chance of setting out in the right direction this Wednesday, with the Republicans’ third primary debate. Matt Bai is begging clear-minded conservatives to watch and remember that they “really do have solid options” for ensuring a “decent American as president, no matter which party prevails.” The Editorial Board, in its own debate preview, explains why it favors Nikki Haley.

Toppling Trump in the primaries still seems a long shot. But if he makes it to the general — where toppling him is a medium shot at best — only one recourse will remain, as Catherine Rampell writes in the columnist roundtable: that imperfect, blessed, frustrating, modest power of the vote.

Trump's timeline about promoting hate was published by Human Rights Campaign website with details at this site here.

Trump and his evil allies plot revenge and Justice Department control in a second term. Advisers also discussed deploying the military to quell potential unrest on Inauguration Day. Critics have called the ideas under consideration dangerous and unconstitutional.